Max just hit the gas on Duster—and the official trailer confirms it’s about to be a wild ride through the Southwest.
From the minds of J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan, the eight-episode crime thriller sets up shop in 1972 and throws us into a dusty, lawless world where loyalty is dangerous and everyone’s trying to outrun their past. Josh Holloway (Lost) plays the driver caught in the middle, and Rachel Hilson (Love, Victor) is the FBI agent determined to take the whole operation down—whether he’s ready or not.
The trailer opens with Keith David’s crime boss Ezra Saxton delivering the kind of line that lets you know blood is about to be spilled: “How do you feel about violence?” Cue screeching tires, loaded glances, and a whole lot of smoke.
Holloway plays the titular wheelman, a sharp but jaded getaway driver working for a crime syndicate on the rise. That syndicate is led by Saxton (David), a Southern kingpin with charm and menace in equal measure. But everything changes when Nina (Hilson), a trailblazing Black FBI agent, rolls into town with one goal: flip the driver and take the empire down from the inside.
It’s a cat-and-mouse game, but with ‘70s grit, funky soul, and bullets flying from all directions.
In addition to Holloway, Hilson, and David, Duster features Sydney Elisabeth, Greg Grunberg, Camille Guaty, Asivak Koostachin, Adriana Aluna Martinez, and Benjamin Charles Watson.
The show marks a reunion between Holloway and Abrams, who last teamed up on Lost, but this time they’re trading islands for desert roads and smoke monsters for mob bosses. The project is executive produced by Abrams and Rachel Rusch Rich for Bad Robot, with Morgan repping for TinkerToy Productions. Steph Green (Watchmen, The Book of Boba Fett) directs and executive produces the first two episodes, which she helms from scripts penned by Abrams and Morgan.
While Duster is fictional, its lead character draws inspiration from real-world trailblazers. Though not based directly on Sylvia Mathis—the first Black female FBI agent, who joined the bureau in 1976—the show’s central figure echoes her same groundbreaking spirit. Mathis shattered ceilings in a space where Black women had long been locked out, and Hilson’s Nina taps into that same quiet force of change, grit, and power.
Set against the backdrop of a Southwest full of jukeboxes, muscle cars, and back-alley deals, Duster leans into the rawness of the era. From the wardrobe to the soundtrack, it oozes style and tension—and it’s clear Hilson is stepping into her own leading-lady era.
Max is releasing the series weekly, beginning with its two-episode premiere on May 15, and dropping new episodes every Thursday through July 3.